We pulled out at 5 a.m. as planned and drove in the dark out of town. It was kind of eery driving in the dark, since I hardly ever do it since i've moved to africa. At one point the road did a "y" and I took the wrong direction but after several minutes realized what had happened. By 5:40 we'd pulled up at the ferry dock, weaving through a 20 car line that had obviously been there for hours. I arrived first and got yelled at by a truck driver who said I should go to the back of the line. This was absurd, since all pedestrians and motorcycles always jumped the line since they could squeeze in beside the cars. I decided that because of the heated tones these guys were giving me i'd get off there and walk the rest of the way to ask the ferry pilot. He said "no problem" so we zig-zagged the rest of the way to the front. When the ferry guy gave the signal we boarded the big ferry and got turned around, all the other cars, however, started getting on the smaller ferry. We watched 4 cars squeeze on, cranked the motors, and made a dash to get on the smaller boat. There just was enough room but that decision saved us 30 minutes because the larger boat took forever to get loaded and to pull out. The sunrise on the ferry was beautiful and before we knew it we were on the other side. We got off the boat quickly and soon the trucks were blocked by a big lorry who'd broken down on the causeway. We pulled around him and as we were hitting the straight road South I decided i'd better stop and soak in what had happened on the ride up. Just to soak in the fact that i'd done it and from here on it was the ride home. I took my helmet off and reflected a few minutes, thanking God for where I was, took one last look at the water and got ready for the awesome ride out. I was passing JJ in no time and decide to ride about 10-15 miles this time (from the point I passed him) without stopping. I figured at that speed no fall could do too much damage :). The larger distance gave me more time off the bike to wait so I talked to more Tuareg and got to see them draw water up from a well with camels. The squeal of their wooden pulleys as the sheep-skin-bag was pulled up out of the 100 foot well was a unique sound. Being in the water "business" I enjoyed seeing how they'd adapted to the difficulty of deep hand dug wells. The next stop I got off the bike and sat on the ground on the right side, letting the bike made shade for me from the morning sun, and enjoyed just watching the nothingness aside the road. Little by little, though, JJ began to pick up speed and before I knew it my 15 minute waits had turned to 5-6 minutes as he began to get in the groove. I felt like a coach seeing his rookie player hit a home run! This made things go faster and before we knew it we'd passed half way and were on our way to Douentza. We made it to Douentza this time at 11:30 a.m (which was much better than the previous 4p.m arrival!) and went to a campement to get some cold water and eat our K-Cliff lunch. (For all you XR650L guys reading this, with the road in it's current state you could easily make it in 3 hours, maybe 2.5 hours if you really pushed it). We pulled out of Douentza and made the run back to Sevare (stopping once to rest under a thorn tree) and arrived there around 3 p.m (driving at 100kmh you can make it in 2 hours). We drove around trying to find gasoline and then tried to find Mac's Refuge based on my guidebook map. I went toward Mopti and turned at the watertower just like the map showed, except that road was essentially a line of giant puddles and thorn tree limbs. We zigged and zagged until finally coming upon a man pulling out on his motorcycle. He said he knew where it was and would lead us there. It was funny struggling to keep up with him as he masterfully zigged and zagged past water and thorn branches on his Yamaha Mate 50. It wasn't the first time we'd been embarrassed by the pace of an African on a tiny bike! We arrived at Mac's and decided to get a shared room with a fan ($12 with breakfast) and signed up for Mac's famous dinner. That night was Indian Night. Mac is the son of missionaries to Mali and was a missionary himself for some time and now runs a guesthouse in Sevare. He's a food fanatic and makes some of the best food you'll ever find in West Africa. Eating is family style, with Mac at the head of the table, and he runs an efficient table. We all had more food than we could handle. It just so happened that there were two Norwegian guys staying the night too, doing a Dogon tour before heading to Douentza to meet an older friend of theirs. Our guide from Dogon land was there with them so I caught him up on the trip we'd had and introduced myself to them. They were early 30's, extremely successful, and came from a culture maybe more materialistic than even my own. It's not that they were that way, it's just that in talking I realized they wrestled with so many of the same things i've wrestled with because of our impoverished atmosphere here. It was one of the guys first time to travel to the third-world while the other had done extensive travel in impoverished Asia. He did this for his vacations and was part of his volunteer work with the Lions Club. Both guys have great hearts and I really enjoyed our evening conversations with them. We finished dinner and talked to Mac about the route to Djenne and found out the Norwegians were going the next day too. So we set a rendezvous at Chez Baba for lunch and crashed for the night.
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